Bartleby, the Scrivener · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
The Lawyer
major
He runs a snug, unambitious practice among rich men's bonds and mortgages, employing copyists in a chambers whose windows look onto a blank wall. Profoundly convinced that the easiest way of life is best, he is a man of prudence and method who seldom loses his temper and never courts public applause. When he hires a pale new scrivener, his prized tranquility is tested, and his cautious, accommodating nature becomes the lens through which the story's central mystery unfolds.
Bartleby
major
Hired into a Wall Street law office, he works with quiet, almost ghostly diligence before gradually refusing each task assigned to him, first small ones, then all. His passive, unshakable refusals baffle his employer, who cannot provoke, persuade, or dismiss him, and who finds his own authority dissolving before such calm resistance. Bartleby's stillness and inscrutability turn a routine office into a study of will, pity, and the limits of one man's hold over another.
Turkey
minor
An elderly, efficient scrivener in the lawyer's employ who becomes irritable and error-prone in the afternoons.
Nippers
minor
A young, ambitious scrivener who suffers from indigestion and irritability in the mornings, but is calm and useful in the afternoons.
Ginger Nut
minor
A twelve-year-old office boy who runs errands for the scriveners and is named for the cakes he often fetches.
The Grub-man
minor
A man who works at the Tombs prison, providing food and small comforts to the inmates for a fee.